MANILA Electric Co. (Meralco) posted an 8 percent drop in revenues for the first three months of the year at P67.91 billion, compared to the previous year’s P73.63 billion for the same period.
Betty Siy-Yap, Meralco chief finance officer and senior vice president, said in a virtual briefing yesterday the lower revenues were due to the effect of lower generation and transmission pass through charges that were only offset by higher energy sales volume for the period.
The listed power distributor’s core net income rose 2 percent to P5.72 billion from P5.6 billion, but its net income slumped by 54 percent to P2.62 billion from P5.67 billion.
Meralco attributed the lower net income to the recognition of the company’s impairment of 28 percent effective interest in Pacific Light and Power Ltd. in Singapore of P2.7 billion, notwithstanding the excellent operating record of the facility trading conditions in the Singapore Electricity Market which continues to be affected by low spot prices.
According to Siy-Yap, the shareholders decided it was more prudent to recognize impairment in the value of the investment in the said project.
Despite the lower income and revenue, Meralco’s energy sales, customer count and peak demand improved for the first quarter of the year.
Energy sales for the quarter grew 4.8 percent to 10,879 gigawatt hours (GWh) from 10,381 GWh last year.
Residential sales, which represent 30.9 percent of the total energy sales volume, went up by 11.8 percent due to more demand from houses as the population was subjected to an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
Commercial sales, with a share of 39.9 percent, rose by 5.3 percent while commercial, with a share of 39.2 percent, decreased by 2.4 percent.
Victor Genuino, Meralco first vice president and head of customer retail services and corporate communications, said apart from the ECQ, the higher temperature for the quarter led residential sales to go up.
However, Genuino said drivers in both commercial and industrial customers booked lower demand for electricity including real estate, retail trade, hotels, restaurant, food, beverage, medical equipment, plastics and rubber.
Meralco’s customer count reached 6.93 million for the period, up 3.8 percent from last year’s 6.68 million. Residential customers, representing 92.1 percent of the pool, rose by 3.9 percent; commercial, with 7.7 percent share, grew by 2.7 percent; and industrial customers, contributing 0.2 percent, inched up by 1.7 percent.
Meralco’s peak demand for the period hit 7,614 megawatts (MW), a 9.6 percent improvement over last year’s 6,950 MW.
Manuel Pangilinan, Meralco chairman, said yesterday as the coronavirus pandemic continues to develop, the company will not be able to provide its target for the year.
“We can’t thoroughly give any earnings outlook for the full year. So far, what we’re experiencing for the April month is a decline in our billed volume and that’s likely to hold for the entire second quarter. So, with lower volumes and lower revenues, it is likely that second quarter results will come in below the first quarter results with the P5.8 billion… We do hope that second half would be better than the first and we are looking forward to that,” Pangilinan said.
